Arkadius leads the group onto the teleport pad and backs away, "Remember... with that damned barrier up it's a one way trip. Good luck and all... try not to die." He hits a button and the world around Lumina, Alexis, Awakener and Serpico bubbles outwards and disappears...

And then the group is greeting by a black thunderstorm - out in an open field with nothing but grassland around. The wind is shrieking, the sky is black, constant lightning and thunder split the sky. Off in the distance is the towering monolith of the Black Crystal reaching into the sky and out of the world. The ground rumbles... instantly the group can feel the Black Crystal reaching for them... but the moment the tendrils make contact it shrinks away and does not return.

The area around them seems clear - no life forms are detected or felt nearby. The only thing around besides open land and the black crystal is a gigantic stone castle perched on top of a cliff a few miles off to the north. For being a planet that's supposed to be infested with God-level zombies, it's incredibly quiet... well, expect for the storm.

Serpico moves immediately. He flares his color rune and draws a pair of spectacles, in green. "These should let me detect life forms, hopefully it will work with this as well." He puts them on and examines the surroundings.

Serpico draws and scans the surrounding area for life and relays the information he finds. Far to the west there are hundreds of thousands of Gods... they are standing in a grid-like pattern and seem to be perfectly still. To the North, within the castle, is unmistakably Athena. Standing near her is a gigantic weave signature... it's unfamiliar, but it seems to be working some sort of Rune Magic on Athena.

"That sounds bad... First priority should be to see what exactly is going on with Athena..." Lumina looks up into the sky at the sound of thunder and catches sight of a flash of lightning. "Alright. We need to get closer. Let's skim along the bottom of the cloud cover up above us. Alexis, use your Rune of Darkness and your Shift to make us look like part of the darkened clouds. Awakener, use your Rune of Endings to End the enemy's ability to perceive us."

Looking at Serpico, Lumina thinks for a moment. "Serpico, use your ink to make us some gear we might need. Something like that blight cutting razor, if possible. If you get any ideas for gear to use and need our Runes, let us know."

With that, Lumina leads the group up into the sky, adding in her Lightning Rune to cover their movement as a part of the storm.

The Awakener focuses the power of the Final Rune, similar to how it did when facing the crowd back on Ryuseii's World - it Ends the perception of anyone percieving them, causing them to simply move over them as if they were empty space, and Ends their ability to notice that they've done so. It also grants Finality to the enchantment - it is now fixed, and shouldn't expire for some time. The Awakener then takes to the air after Lumina, refocusing its Ether as they fly.

Safety lies in the Dark. And safety in the Dark takes this form; that evil cannot echolocate, and thus is unable to perceive that which hides in the Dark.

Alexis reaches therefore to his Dark Rune, and casts from the aspect of Safety; he makes the group Safe from observation.

Next, he taps into his rune of Cold. Hot air is, in general, energetic and full of motion; cold air is, by comparison, quiet and still, even sluggish. Alexis knows exactly how crosswinds - especially storm winds - can mess up a flight. Therefore, he lets his Cold rune calm the air, smoothing their path to Athena.

"I don't quite see," he says, "how my Shift is supposed to help us hide. I can't change its colour, only its shape, and it's far too dark to make a convincing cloud shape..."

Dark Rune: Safety: Safe from observationCold Rune: Still the air - calm the dangerous windsMove: Fly towards the Castle with the others

Lumina leads her group into the stormy sky and heads towards the castle where Athena can be felt. Awakener and Alexis cast runes to help cover them, while Serpico tries to re-create his severing blade; he manages to make a set of daggers that look extremely sharp.

As they approach the castle, they can hear a humming of sorts coming from within. Covered by their runes, they sneak inside to discover the castle is the site of an extremely over-sized library. Inside there are candles adorning the walls, flickering in the stormy wind... they follow the sound of the humming undetected until they enter a room with a large balcony up a twin set of curving stairs...

"You must learn Athena. The Unknown cannot be ignored any longer." The second voice is rough, but gentle. Between Alexis and Awakener, the group sneak around the bookshelves, floating over the tops undetected to get a good look at what's going on.

The Tattered Cloak man stands over Athena, face hidden in his brown cloak. Athena is on her knees in front of him, her back to the others as the man looks down at her, holding out a dark orange hand that looks an awful like Makosan's...

Serpico winces slightly, and motions the others to him. After a moment, a sharp grin forms. He speaks via the Communication Rune.

"Ok, we want to get Teach away from Darth Bathrobe there. But he took Harm out in a single shot, as I recall. So we do this sneaky-like, I'd say. Bats, You and Foxgirl will need to link and deafen him. Lightning and sound should do that. I'll blacken the room, blind him. Oh, and hold your noses, I can do something there to, so why go half steps. I figure then we'll at least have him surprised. Bats will need to charge him but stay WAY out of arms reach. Make him distracted by your movement. And then the Armor can pop in, grab Athena, and pop out. I remember that trick you did b efore. So," he looks to Lumina, eyes twinkling with the great pranking element of this idea. "I believe its your call. What do you think, everybody?"

The Awakener sends a mental acknowledgement to Serpico, then prepares for everything to happen at once. As soon as the others release their spells, the Awakener tenses; once Alexis flies past Tiranade, the Awakener double-casts the Journey's End spell, once with each hand, with only an instant between each cast. In the first moment, it appears in the darkened room, using its eyeless sight to grab Athena with its now-free hand; in the next instant, it releases the Journey's End spell and departs as far as the Rune can take it.

"This plan is dangerous, likely to get us all killed, and sexy as hell." Lumina's face sobers up a bit more, and the smile fades. "Athena needs us. We've got to get her out of here, so we're doing this." Lumina doesn't even bother with the theatrics this time around. Throwing her hand in the air, she transform as quickly as possible, gaining her armor and sending Naomi to aid Alexis.

[Pure Transformation][Shift Support Link - Alexis]

Transforming both herself and Alexis, Lumina leaps out of cover and summons her Lightning Rune. Combining it with Alexis's Sonic Rune, the two of them work together to create an almighty clap of localized thunder right next to Darth Bathrobe's ear. Once it's said and done, Lumina moves into position to take advantage of Serpico's retreat, assuming of course that the smash and grab is successful.

Naomi leaps over Alexis, and he is surrounded for an instant (much to his disgust) in a halo of light. Clothes appear around him; a sleeveless silver waistcoat appears first, followed by a pair of heavy boots. A top hat comes into existence on his head, with gaps for his ears to stick out; a short skirt (or possibly a kilt) about his waist; and some sort of long sleeve wraps itself about his tail.

The mental/emotional link is interesting, to say the least. But there's not time to bother about that now; Alexis has a job to do. First, the Sonic rune; Alexis creates a deafening boom next to Tiranade's ears.

Then he leaps into the air. He kicks off his new boots, and lets his Shift flow off his feet, allowing it to take on a new shape; the shape of a diving Alexis. Charge... he thinks quietly ...without getting too close. He drops his Shift towards Tiranade, letting it fall as a distraction; then turns about and heads for the nearest exit. Probably a window.

...on the bright side, his new Book should be automatically copying the contents of any books that he gets close enough to. It's likely picking up all sorts of useful general knowledge; though it might be some time before Alexis gets a chance to look over any of it.

Sonic rune: Sonic BoomShift: Dark Doppelganger: Drop on TiranadeMove: Get out of there as fast as possible

Serpico smiles tightly. Thought of that one pretty darn fast. Dunno if they've considered all the ways it might go wrong..... Well, nothing ventured and all that,

He alters the ink in his pen, creating two specific shades of Indigo. Then, aiming it at nothing in particular but the air in the "room", he sprays out all the ink. A massive inky black cloud immediately eclipses the room, filled with the horrifying stench of decay.

"...you... you cannot mean this... all this time..." Athena bows her head lower.

"All this time."

Lumina shuts her eyes, waiting... flash - boom. Her Rune tells her the mood of the storm... flash - boom. To anyone else the lightning is random, unpredictable... flash - boom. To Lumina... it's the simplest song in the world.

The timing is perfect - an explosion in the ears of the Tattered Cloak Man that makes him cringe. Awakener appears and lays his hands on Athena and in the same instant he is gone. Yellow eyes, the left most one scarred, peer out from the under the hood the moment the Dark Doppleganger slams into the man's face and disappears like so much mist - at that exact moment Serpico sprays the nastiest smell he can muster all about the room.

Then they are all out the window and fleeing across the plains as quickly as possible.

Athena curls into a ball in Awakener's arms, her face hidden, "Why... I told you not to come... get out of here..."

"So I'm curious."

The group comes to a dead stop as the Tattered Cloak Man materializes in front of them. "After swooping in, stunning the bad guy, and fleeing with Athena where were you all going to go with the barrier around this world cutting off all means of escape?"

Athena tries to free herself of Awakener's arms and sinks to the ground, her legs giving out. She looks up at them all, half her face is covered in blight... but it's different than on Utopia. Where on that world, the pattern was random and veiny - this blight appears to be structured, runic in nature, ending in a black triangle underneath her right eye. "..Tir... Tiranade..."

The Tattered Cloak Man pulls down his hood, revealing an almost mirrored image of Makosan's face, but a much darker shade of orange - his left eyelid, forhead and cheek split by a long straight yellow soul scar. "Honestly. Your students are loyal and foolish to a fault..." he scans over the crew with yellow eyes.

"I'll stay... please. I'll surrender to the Blight... just let them leave..." Her head sinks down into a bow, begging with her forehead to the ground.

After a moment of quiet contemplation, Tiranade responds. "...very well." He snaps his fingers, a burst of runes flicker like sparks and the four feel something about their recall runes change. "You four are free to go. It's a one way ticket - you can pass through the barrier around the world now." He glances at Athena, "She can not - so please, no more heroics? Leave. Go help your friends with my little distraction at The Arbiter Headquarters."

Athena looks over her shoulder, tears pouring down her face, "Go... get away while you still can... I am already lost..."

"To be honest, I'm sort of surprised we made it this far," Lumina steps cheerfully forward, placing a hand on Athena's shoulder for reassurance. "I'd assumed we'd have been crushed the moment we got here." Lumina takes a second to examine Athena and the world around her. "Everything here is all sorta bleak. Not sure I like your decorating scheme. Might want to spruce the place up a bit. Could always use more pink..."

Taking a deep breath, Lumina shudders a bit. "Okay, so I'm scared out of my mind. I didn't want to come here in the first place, because Utopia was bad enough. But this is Athena we're talking about. Our teacher. The effort was worth it. Is. IS worth it." Lumina takes a step forward and looks at Tiranade. "You're Tiranade... You used to be Athena's student too, didn't you? As a fellow student, I want to know. Why? Seriously, what's the point in doing all this?" Lumina gestures around her at all of the various doom and gloom. "Is there some kind of message you want to send? Do you not like the way the council does things? Seriously, I'm genuinely curious."

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